Kelvernia: A Dungeon Crawl Classics Campaign

Session 0.5

19

JAN/15

The party pressed on down the spiral stairs, reaching a long hall-like room. Inside were several shelves of clay figurines as well as tables with miniature terrain to simulate battles. A war room of some kind it seemed. Near the other end of the room was a door.

When {PC NAME} found one of the figures was silver, Iago the halfling begin smashing the clay ones looking for more. Wilfred pressed on and opened the far door.

Inside was a large tiered chamber lit be a pulsating orb at the far end that rested above a rocky throne on a dais. Seated on the chair was a life-sized clay figure in the form of a savage warlord. Standing in front of him were seven more figures, clad as generals. The center of the room was lower than the rest, with several ranks of clay soldiers standing at attention. The warlord’s arm moved and the front rank of the soldiers lurched into a semblance of life, moving toward the door.

Wilfred slammed the door to, and {PC NAME} upended the tables as a barricade. As the party decided began to retreat upstairs, {PC NAME} heard a groaning crash and the rush of water. When they reached the pool chamber, they could see that the water was rushing through a hole that had broken through the pool’s bottom from which they had prised the crystals. Hearing heavy steps below, {PC NAME} spiked the door to the stairs shut.

Once the pool had more or less emptied, {PC NAME} secured a rope to a pillar and carefully lowered themselves into the pool to look through the hole. Below he could see the room with the clay soldiers. Many had been damaged by the cave-in, and the rest of the ones in the lowest tier with dissolving in the water. A few were still able-bodied enough to hurl spears, though. {PC NAME} took one in the head and was killed instantly. The party recovered the body (and the weapon!) from the hole. {PC NAME} also tricked the crystal statues into the pool with a torch and they resulting cave-in of some more floor dropped them on the soldiers in the water below. The crystal statues seemed less affected by the water than the clay ones as they ended up fighting one another. A few decoy swings with the corpse through the hole yielded another spear for the party’s arsenal. But then no more spears flew.

{PC NAME} tried lowering himself partway, but found that –while the soldiers had fallen– the generals stood high and dry. He shimmied up the rope with his companions pulling mightily, but a spear still found its mark and he was killed. Now, though, it appeared the clay men were unarmed. A few moments later, there was pounding on the stairwell door. Apparently, not all the clay soldiers had melted. For the moment though, the spike held. {PC NAME} also tricked the crystal statues into the pool with a torch and they resulting cave-in of some more floor dropped them on the soldiers in the water below. The crystal statues seemed less unaffected by the water and fought the generals when they were attacked.

The party retreated to the room with the fire-blasting statue and rigged a trip-line in front of the door. It wasn’t long before they heard the wood splinter inside the room. The door opened and one clay man fell over the rope breaking off his left arm at the elbow, with two more behind him in the doorway. A furious melee ensued and the clay soldiers were shattered.

Returning to the room with the crystal pool, the party could see that the hole had been enlarged by the crystal men falling through. The warlord was still visible on his throne. While cooler heads planned a missile volley, Wilfred bulled down the stairs and charged the unarmed leader statue, but his neck was snapped but a porcelain punch. A volley from above finished off the warlord statue shortly after that and the party went back downstairs to investigate the scene.

The pulsing orb turned out to be a crystalline globe on a pillar behind the throne. The elf {PC NAME} found a secret door on the dais. Behind it, a short hallway led to a burial chamber with mystic symbols on the floor. Inside, the party found numerous strange artifacts, and a long entombed corpse. After retrieving anything that looked valuable, {PC NAME} and {PC NAME} set fire to the body with oil and rags, shutting the secret door behind them as they left the blaze.

The surviving members of the band left their dead and wound their way out of the chambers where they had seen so much death and danger until the returned to the portal. Beyond, the sky was beginning to gray with false dawn. As they stepped through onto the grass of their own world again, the corridor visible through the archway wavered and vanished, leaving only the grass beyond to be seen. Shouldering their burdens of plunder, they began the walk back to Tambrake.